US politician's high-calibre Christmas card draws ire in wake of San Bernardino shooting

A US politician has drawn criticism for a Christmas card released just two days before the San Bernardino shooting depicting her family, including a small child, posing with a range of high powered firearms.

The card, which shows Ms Fiore and her brood all dressed in festive red shirts and smiling at the camera, also features a list of the firearms proudly on display, including a Walther pistol, which is in the hands of a bespectacled child who looks no older than five years of age.

Michele Fiore probably wouldn't be too offended by a commenter likening her to Rambo. (Facebook) ()

"Thanks for making Nevada look like a bunch of ignorant, irresponsible, heartless morons," one enraged commenter wrote.

"In the days after a mass shooting which has left America, once again, questioning the ease with which people on no fly lists, people with criminal histories can acquire guns, you decide it's appropriate to post a family holiday picture with a display of weaponry that Rambo would call excessive."

Street legal...The weapons used by the San Bernardino shooters. (AAP) ()

The vehement gun proponent shrugged off heat from her detractors, however, taking to her website the day after the San Bernardino shooting that left 14 dead to accuse certain politicians and news outlets of "contorting" the truth about the massacre.

"If there was a checklist to determine if an event was a terrorist attack, yesterdays (sic) event would mark all the boxes," reads the 45-year-old assemblywoman's post, which is entitled "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it must be a goat".

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"Yet we see politicians and media outlets still trying to twist it into a case of simple workplace violence, so they can advance their narrative that we are not under assault by radical Islam, but simple gun violence.

"My strong message to you is its (sic) time Americans begin protecting America. Get armed, get trained get your head out if (sic) the sand and be prepared," she writes, adding that she endorses Nevada's Front Sight Firearms Training Institute before signing off with "Love & Liberty".

Earlier today, US President Barack Obama, whose attempts at gun reform have been blocked time and again by congress and the NRA, said that San Bernardino was "another tragic reminder that here in America it's way too easy for dangerous people to get their hands on a gun."

"Right now," the president said during a public address, "people on the no-fly list can walk into a store and buy a gun. That is insane. If you're too dangerous to board a plane, you're too dangerous, by definition, to buy a gun."

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Mr Obama's comments were echoed by a New York Times editorial – the first the venerable newspaper has printed on its front page in 95 years – demanding change and slamming the go-to arguments of gun proponents.

"They point out that determined killers obtained weapons illegally in places like France, England and Norway that have strict gun laws. Yes, they did," the editorial board wrote.

"But at least those countries are trying. The United States is not."

That piece followed a searing New York Daily News front page this week that featured tweets from conservative politicians offering prayers for the victims of the San Bernardino rampage accompanied by the headline "God isn't fixing this", and blistering standfirst that read:

"As latest batch of innocent Americans are left lying in pools of blood, cowards who could truly end gun scourge continue to hide behind meaningless platitudes".